TVLine Mixtape: Your Favorite Songs from Fringe, How I Met Your Mother, CSI:NY and More

It’s 2013, TVLiners, and that means we’re resolving to bring you a whole new year full of great TVLine Mixtapes!

As always, here are some great songs from recent TV episodes, complete with artist and album information in case you want to add them to your permanent collection. Spoilers abound, and we chose songs we liked – but we always want to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

So peruse our playlist, and then hit the comments with your favorite TV jams!

SERIES AND EPISODE | How I Met Your Mother, “The Final Page, Part Two”TITLE | “Let Your Heart Hold Fast”ARTIST |Fort AtlanticALBUM | Fort Atlantic (2012)WHY IT ROCKED | The only thing that makes this legen – wait for it – dary moment even more incredible is the perfect song choice that follows Robin’s “Yes.” How I Met Your Mother music coordinator, will you marry us?

SERIES AND EPISODE | New Girl, “Santa”TITLE | “Santa Stole My Lady”ARTIST | Fitz and the TantrumsALBUM | The holiday single is available on Amazon and iTunes.WHY IT ROCKED | After hemming and hawing about hottie doc Sam, this ditty gets Jess in the mood to take him back. (Or maybe it was the Angie-Nick-Schmidt lap dance a few scenes before? Either way, Merry Christmas to all, and to all an inappropriate pediatric ward make-out session!)

SERIES AND EPISODE | Chicago Fire, “It Ain’t Easy”TITLE | “Save Me”ARTIST | Aimee MannALBUM | Magnolia: Music from the Motion Picture (1999)WHY IT ROCKED | It all seems so casual: Dawson feeding Casey a bite of her tomato sauce (“It’s a little spicy”), Casey suddenly deciding he, too, needs to have a presence on her “wall of fame.” But as the pair get close for a pic and Mann’s ballad builds, it’s clear something’s about to happen. Damn that inopportunely timed phone call!LINER NOTES | Sharp-eared fans of Portlandia will recognize “Save Me,” which was first used in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, as the song cleaning lady Aimee Mann played for Fred and Carrie in a Season 1 episode.

SERIES AND EPISODE | Fringe, “Black Blotter”TITLE | “Hurdy Gurdy Man”ARTIST | DonovanALBUM | The Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968)WHY IT ROCKED | For one, “White Rabbit” is overused when scoring such a sequence. Plus, “Hurdy Gurdy Man” sets just as psychedelic a mood, as Walter indulges in an old habit — dropping acid, in this case the ominously named “Black Blotter” — to reopen closed-off portions of his noodle. Hey, whatever price to save the world, right?

SERIES AND EPISODE | CSI:NY, “The Real McCoy”TITLE |“With a Girl Like You”ARTIST | The TroggsALBUM |The 1966 single is available on The Best of the Troggs (1994)WHY IT ROCKED | Adam’s abusive dad is sick, and he’s not real sure how he feels about that. Good thing his girlfriend Michelle is cool with his baggage – and his choice of vintage dance tunes – because otherwise, we might not have gotten this sweet, intimate ending to the episode.

SERIES AND EPISODE | American Horror Story, “The Name Game”TITLE | “I Put a Spell on You”ARTIST | Screamin’ Jay HawkinsALBUM |The 1956 single is available on I Put a Spell on You: The Best of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (2008)WHY IT ROCKED | We know, we know – Sister Jude’s candy-colored day dream/delusion of “The Name Game” is the tune everyone’s talking about. But we were transfixed by the way Sister Mary Eunice managed to both get the common room party started and simultaneously mock Patient G2573 Sister Jude (who, by the way, conveyed more emotion with that smoke exhalation than many actors do with pages of monologue). All the while, Hawkins’ intoxicating beat drove on. Who knew it would be the younger nun’s last dance?